Glock recalls initial confusion - and accusations - about Brazil 2008 F1 finale

Amid a late rain shower in the closing stages of the final round in Brazil, Toyota opted to keep both their drivers - including Glock - on dry tyres in a bid to gain positions. 

With most of the field pitting for wets, Toyota’s gamble proved to be the wrong call when the rain intensified with only three laps remaining. 

Glock, struggling to stay on track, tip-toed around the final lap to claim sixth place, but lost a place to McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton at the final corner, a position change which had dramatic consequences for the title fight.

Fifth place gave Hamilton the position he needed to beat Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, who convincingly won the race, to claim his maiden F1 world championship. 

Glock’s German nationality led to claims in the media that he had purposely helped the McLaren-Mercedes team, and he was subjected to wild accusations. 

But as he told the official F1 website, Glock had no idea about the magnitude of what had just happened, and was shocked when he was flocked by journalists immediately after the race. 

“I never thought this would happen to me,” Glock said. “We tried to just do our race and make the maximum out of it and at the end we gained positions by staying out, but no one told me that I’m the guy who decided the championship.

“Even when I came back after the race and I parked behind Lewis, I asked my engineer who won the championship and he said, ‘It’s Lewis’. I went to Lewis, said congratulations, walked away and this whole bunch of journalists ran down. I thought, ‘OK, they’re all going to Lewis’, so I stepped aside. Then they all came to me!

“I was asked these weird questions like, ‘Was it on purpose?’, ‘Why did you do that?’, blah, blah, blah. I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ I had no idea. 

“My physiotherapist came to me, grabbed me, pulled me back to the pits and explained to me what really happened. I said, ‘OK, now I understand what’s going on’. It’s part of F1 history.”

Glock previously revealed he and his family were sent death threats for years afterwards.